Abstract

New Cosmic Horizons was written by a project manager, originally trained as a physicist, who worked in the European space world and in business for about twenty‐five years and then returned to academia to complete his Ph.D. It is a well‐written, comprehensive compilation of major scientific results in space astronomy obtained during the latter half of the twentieth century. As the book jacket explains, “it explores the triumphs of space experiments and spacecraft designs and the amazing astronomical results that they have produced.” It is particularly useful because it does not just concentrate on American contributions in this area, as important as they have been, but tries to redress the transatlantic balance by including scientific work in the Soviet Union and Europe, notably the European Space Agency. The blurb claims that David Leverington relates the changes in space astronomy programs in these various countries to their “changing political imperatives.” This is done very sketchily, however, and merely by way of a backdrop to his main objective.Practicing astronomers, be they amateur or professional, and historians of science who could use a survey of the major milestones in space astronomy will find this a useful guide. It is seriously marred as a reference work, however, by the total absence of any reference to primary or secondary material in the text. There is a bibliography of what Leverington calls “general sources used in the preparation of this book” , which includes standard histories of space and of space science. None of these books, nor any scientific papers, are cited in the body of the argument. Everything that is said, or claimed, has to be taken on the authority of the author, an extraordinary approach that can only undermine and discredit what was otherwise a laudable objective